Lausanne issues apology after speaker’s comments on Israel and dispensational eschatology cause offence

The director of the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation has issued an apology after a controversial speech by one of its guest speakers left some participants offended.

Ruth Padilla DeBorst, associate professor of world Christianity at Western Theological Seminary, Michigan, delivered an address on Monday evening that took aim at dispensational eschatology – a theological framework that takes a literal view of Old Testament promises and believes that God’s salvation plan includes Israel’s future restoration.

During her 15-minute presentation on the topic of justice, Padilla DeBorst said, “God is worshipped not by rights, religious festivities, or even mission activism, all practices that can simply serve as masks, but by ethical obedience.

“What makes God’s people such are not superficial expressions of religious piety, Christianese jargon, worship jingles or colonialist theologies that justify and finance oppression under the guise of some dispensational eschatology.”

In an open letter to congress participants, Padilla DeBorst apologised for the “pain” her comments “might have caused”.

“This is not in any way a blanket dismissal of dispensational theology and, even less, of sisters and brothers who subscribe to that stance,” she said.

“For the pain my statement might have caused, I am sorry. What I am naming is the troubling theological rationale sustained by some people to perpetrate injustice against certain other people.”

Concerns were raised about other remarks made by Padilla Deborst in reference to the Israel-Gaza conflict and evangelical support for Israel.

She said during her speech, “There is no room for indifference toward all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence the world round, the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories, all who are mourning the loss of loved ones. Their pain is our pain if we are God’s people.”

Critics questioned the time and place of her comments, coming at a major congress attended by a breadth of international participants and just days before the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 in which over a thousand Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage. Some congress participants took particular issue with the suggestion that Israel was holding hostages.

In her letter to congress participants, Padilla DeBorst justified her decision to “zero in on” Gaza and Palestine and “name only them” by suggesting that “far too many” evangelicals are uncritically supportive of Israel.

“I am convinced that this is a current justice issue in relation to which we, as Christians, have a particular responsibility,” she said.

“Let me explain. Truly, the Hamas attack almost a year ago was abhorrent and absolutely reprehensible, and truly people who live in Israel, Jewish, Palestinian and others are being threatened as I write. Their pain is our pain.

“At the same time, the long standing suffering of Palestinians has been compounded by the attacks on Gaza since October 7 where over 40,000 people have been killed, many of them, children.

“Additionally, settler attacks have only increased in the West Bank. Their pain is our pain – or it should be. However, far too many evangelicals around the world a-critically ‘stand with Israel,’ and remain oblivious to the suffering Palestinians. This injustice must be named.”

She did not address criticism towards her remarks on hostages.

In a written apology emailed to participants, congress director David Bennett said that while Lausanne seeks to “include people from a great variety of cultural, theological, historical and political perspectives”, leaders had on this occasion become aware of “significant pain and offence experienced at this congress from those in dispensational theological contexts, those who are Jews, and those engaged in ministries to Jews and/or in Israel”.

“As congress director, I would like to offer an apology for a presentation this week which singled out ‘dispensational eschatology’ in a critical tone, implying that it contributed to violence and injustice, and which failed to note that many theologies have been misused and misapplied as justifications for violence,” he said.

“That same presentation referred to the suffering of the Palestinian people, but did not express comparable empathy for the suffering of Israeli people, nor adequately express concern for many other peoples and nations of the world that are currently in the throes of violent conflict.”

He continued, “Our Lausanne team, including me, failed to review the wording of the presentation carefully enough in advance, or to anticipate the hurts and misunderstandings it would cause.

“As your brother in Christ, and on behalf of our Lausanne leadership, I ask for your forgiveness.”

A spokesperson for Lausanne said that the apology was issued after a leader within the movement made a formal complaint over Padilla DeBorst’s comments.

The apology itself has not been without controversy, as some Lausanne delegates questioned why the leadership decided to apologise in this instance but not in others that have been divisive.

The Lausanne spokesperson addressed this sentiment in comments to reporters: “I know that many people want Lausanne to say many things [and] publish statements as different crises or different situations emerge but that really is at the discretion of the leadership of the movement.”

Tim Adams, General Secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, is one congress participant to see the apology as a mistake. He told Christian Daily International: “In my view this apology was totally against the ethos of Lausanne. Within the agreed theological framework of previous Lausanne statements, Lausanne has been a place which brings people together to overcome barriers and unite to serve the Great Commission.”

He added, “My fear is this apology will do more to divide than to unite.”

Other congress participants welcomed the apology. Dr Dan Sered, president of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism and co-catalyst for the Lausanne Jewish Evangelism Network, said: “I am grateful and proud to be a part of the Lausanne Movement that does not only talk about humility, repentance and reconciliation but actually lives it out. Dr David Bennett and the Lausanne leadership’s apology are accepted and appreciated.”

Padilla DeBorst is the daughter of Latin American theologian René Padilla, who was one of the speakers at the first Lausanne congress in 1974 where he spoke against cultural Christianity in what was dubbed ‘the speech that shook the world’.

Photo: Lausanne